Alex Damm, «Ancient Rhetoric as a Guide to Literary Dependence: The Widow’s Mite», Vol. 97 (2016) 222-243
This essay applies conventions of ancient rhetoric to the analysis of the literary sequence of Mark and Luke’s Gospels. With an eye on basic and more advanced rhetorical handbooks, I outline two significant rhetorical conventions for improving upon literary sources: clarity (perspecuitas) and propriety (aptum). When we ask whether the evangelist Mark has applied these principles to the adaptation of Luke's Gospel (following the Griesbach Hypothesis), or whether Luke has applied these principles to the adaptation of Mark (following the Two-Document and Farrer Hypotheses) in the pericope of the Widow's Mite, we find that the latter scenario is more plausible.
AnCiEnT rHETOriC AS A GUiDE TO LiTErAry DEPEnDEnCE 225
examine chreiai in the Gospels. When i turned to study chreiai in the
progymnasmata (basic textbooks in rhetoric) and in the more sophisti-
cated handbooks of Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian (advanced text-
books in rhetoric), i found that we must look not so much at techniques
for improving upon sources — such techniques are often descriptive
and reversible — but at principles or reasons for improving upon
sources. And in my search through rhetorical theory and practice, i
discovered four such rhetorical principles. While the progymnasmata
introduce and anticipate many of these reasons for change, rhetorical
theory as a whole reveals them most fully. They are as follows:
A. To improve the argumentation: (i) to intensify (add or amplify)
proofs; or (ii) to arrange proofs in more effective sequences;
B. To emphasize one’s own biographical, historical or theological
interests;
C. To enhance clarity (safh,neia / perspecuitas);
D. To enhance propriety (to. pre,pon / aptum): (i) to maintain or strengthen
a style appropriate for a speech’s content: introductory material
requires a moderately ornate style; instructional material (the thesis,
statement of facts [narratio] and proofs [probatio]) requires a plain,
i.e., clear, concise and plausible style; and a conclusion (peroratio)
requires highly ornate style; (ii) to do everything possible to support
one’s case, one’s thesis. in the context of using literary sources,
propriety implies that we must retain source material (in other
words, that we do not repeatedly eschew material) which serves our
chief reasons, whatever those may be, for adapting the source 10.
of Persuasion in the Gospels (eds. B. L. mACK – V. K. rOBBinS) (FFLF; Sonoma,
CA 1989) 51-57; B. L. mACK – V. K. rOBBinS, “Conclusion”, Patterns of Per-
suasion in the Gospels (eds. B. L. mACK – V. K. rOBBinS) (FFLF; Sonoma,
CA 1989) 197. See DAmm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem, xxv, 5-6,
34-35, 46.
10
DAmm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem, xxxvi, 58-80 (see esp.
60 n. 346), 167-170, 181. i did not adequately justify this last point in my disser-
tation. Propriety, explains Lausberg, demands that we do everything possible to
support our case, our propositio; see LAUSBErG, Handbook §§ 1055-1062, esp.
1056.1. in § 1060, he adds that we must in particular consider our audience. Since,
however, we know little about the original audience of the Gospels, we cannot easily
measure the evangelists’ attentiveness to their audiences’ expectations. Critically
in our context, propriety implies that we should include everything, or at least
most things, which would support our major interests in adapting a source.
We should not repeatedly reject source material that would help achieve our
adaptive aims. Lausberg does not make this point explicit. But the implication
of propriety remains: we should incorporate source material, not reject it, when it
serves our aims.